


Morning + Jack

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Gen, uncle Corm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: A little piece of accidental domesticity with Jack in tow. Because I love Jack. And Uncle Corm.





	Morning + Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Banged out super quick so sorry for any errors. This little scene came to me and I’m a sucker for uncle Corm.

It was the fifth bang and the loud ‘Stop!’ that had Robin bounding up the stairs to Cormoran’s flat. She had been hovering by the office door, coffee and keys in hand, ready to start the morning’s work when the commotion began. Pausing at his door listening once more, Robin hesitantly knocked and frowned at the silence now emanating from his attic flat.

 

The door swung open but to Robin’s surprise it revealed a beaming Jack.

 

“Robin!” He said, standing proudly with a wooden sword belted to his hip by a length of rope. He was wearing flannel pyjama bottoms and a blue t-shirt with a ship on the front.

 

“Robin?” Came Strike’s distantly garbled voice from somewhere inside.

 

“Hi Jack, what are you doing here?” Robin asked.

 

“Mum and Dad are in Coventry visiting friends so I got to sleepover with Uncle Stick.” He said proudly as he grabbed her hand and began pulling her into the flat.

 

“What about your brothers?” She said, realising that their names and ages escaped her. Looking around, she noticed the obvious aftermath from a sleepover with a ten year old boy. There was a pizza box on the kitchen counter and various sweet wrappers on Strike’s armchair and on the bedside table. A camouflage green backpack was on the floor by the outdated TV as well as a well worn copy of a book with a dog on the front.

 

“Morning.” Strike’s head peaked out from behind the half closed bathroom door and upon seeing a peak of red boxers in her periphery, Robin concentrated on not letting her eyes drift south. Strike’s brows were furrowed despite him throwing her a smile around the toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.

 

“Uh, I heard some banging and thought-“

 

“Thought monsters had invaded?” Jack’s voice piped in.

 

“Exactly! Thank god we have you to protect us.” Robin said with a pointed look at the sword on Jack’s hip.

 

“Isn’t it cool? We went on a school tour to that Shakespeare place-“

 

“The Globe.” Strike called from the bathroom.

 

“-The Globe, and I got it with my spending money.” Jack pulled it from the square of plaited rope that acted as a holster and held it out for Robin to see.

 

“Very nice.”

 

Bread popped out of the toaster on the kitchen counter and Strike appeared at the bathroom door again.

 

“Jack, get your toast. And switch the kettle on. You want a cuppa tea Robin?” Strike asked.

 

“I’m alright, thanks.” Robin replied, holding up the coffee cup in her hands and feeling slightly awkward that she was now hovering in the middle of the flat as an uninvited breakfast guest.

 

“I don’t want toast.” Jack said as he went and sat on Strike’s bed.

 

“What?” Strike appeared once more, this time swinging himself out of the bathroom and Robin noticed that he wasn’t wearing his prosthetic leg, instead using the ropes he’d hung around the flat to get around.

 

“I don’t want toast.” Jack repeated.

 

“You said you liked toast.” Strike’s incredulous face almost made Robin laugh and she rightly guessed that looking after his nephew hadn’t been an entirely stress free experience for Strike.

 

“I said I liked it, I didn’t say I wanted it for breakfast.”

 

“Then why did...”, Strike paused and took a deep breath, “What DO you want for breakfast?” He calmly asked.

 

“Cereal.”

 

“I’ve only got Corn Flakes.”

 

“I guess that will have to do.” Jack accepted in a very put upon voice that had Robin smiling.

 

“Toast, Robin?” Strike asked with a tight smile.

 

“I’d love some.” Robin walked over to the toaster, grabbed a plate and switched the kettle on

 

“Have you got jam?”

 

“In the fridge.” Strike answered and Robin looked across to see him making his way to the bed. It all felt suddenly very intimate and Robin was grateful when Jack’s voice broke the silence.

 

“What’s your favourite jam Robin?” He asked while absentmindedly swiping his hand back and forth across the duvet on the bed.

 

“Strawberry.”

 

“Mine too.”

 

“What a coincidence.” Strike said with a wink as he sat down on the bed by his nephew. Jack’s cheeks coloured slightly.

 

“I’ve always liked Strawberry. What’s your favourite?”

 

“Blackcurrant.”

 

“Ew.” Robin and Jack said in unison.

 

Robin smiled and then looked across at them both. The bed had dipped where Cormoran was sitting so that Jack was leaning into his side now. Strike had pulled one leg of his trousers on and was fiddling with the prosthesis that was half buried in the other leg. Jack watched intently as his uncle grabbed one of the rubber socks that he wore on his stump.

 

“Why do you have to wear that?”

 

“It makes it more comfortable.” Strike responded and looked sideways to see Jack looking at his prosthetic with a puzzled look on his face.

 

“Do you want to have a look?” He asked, holding the prosthetic towards Jack who nodded. Strike pulled it free from his trousers and then handed it to the boy.

 

Robin watched with a soft smile on her face as Jack moved it this way and that, examining all the parts and pulling at the ankle to see if it moved. He bent his own leg at the knee and then pushed it as far as it would go into the socket before launching himself up and almost falling flat on his face as one leg was suddenly much taller than the other.

 

“No broken bones, thank you. Your mum would tear me limb from remaining limb.” Strike said as he held his nephew’s hand and pulled him back onto the bed beside him.

 

The kettle clicked and Robin caught Strike’s eye before turning to the waiting mugs. It felt very strange seeing ‘uncle Cormoran’ and although she had met him briefly in the hospital by Jack’s bedside this felt like a whole other world she had stepped into.

 

Jack was beside her now, leaving his uncle to finish getting dressed, and Robin pushed a clean bowl and the box of Corn Flakes towards him.

 

“You pour and I’ll get the milk.”

 

“Can I have some tea?” He asked, eyeing up the mug of tea that Robin had left stewing away for Strike.

 

“No, you can’t.” Cormoran called as he stood and limped over towards the kitchen, his stump settling into his prosthetic for the day.

 

“Please?” Jack asked, his eyes suddenly bigger and rounder.

 

“No. What are you anyway, an old bast-“, Strike caught himself just in time as Robin stilled while pouring milk onto Jack’s cereal, “an old man?”

 

Jack looked between the two of them with a knowing smile, as if he was filing the moment away for a future date when he may need to blackmail his uncle.

 

In a dance of domesticity, Strike grabbed the milk from Robin as she placed it on the counter before spreading jam on her toast. A plate appeared beside her as Strike returned the jam to the fridge and then he was stealing one of the triangular slices.

 

“Oi!” Robin rebuked him gently and then followed him to the tiny square with legs pushed against the wall that passed as a table. They took a chair each and Jack got up from where he was sitting on the bed with his bowl of cereal and shimmied between Strike and the table before depositing himself onto his uncle’s good leg. Robin’s chest warmed at the looks of confusion and affection that competed for prominence on Strike’s face.

 

They sat like that for a few minutes, Robin sipping at her now lukewarm coffee while sharing toast with Strike and watching Jack practically inhale his Corn Flakes. More than once the boy looked up with a frown as Strike not-quite-stealthily blew toast crumbs from his nephew’s hair.

 

The London noise gradually increased around them as the morning moved on, but to Robin it felt as though this moment in their own little world could convince time to pause if they wanted it to.

 

“How’s my toast?” She asked her partner.

 

“Too much strawberry.” He said with a twinkle in his eye.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t not use ‘uncle Stick’ even though I think Jack seems to call him uncle Cormoran. In my defence it sounds too cute and Jack’s bound to copy his mum’s nickname for her brother every now and then.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
